Human dominoes do not invoke my sense of humour only my sense of personal injury


Sometimes I think I've lost my sense of humour – I see a wet floor in a public building and I think, that's a slip, trip, or fall accident waiting to happen – I see a worker chatting gaily whilst on a ladder and I think, falls from height are the most common cause of deaths on construction sites. In fact most observances seem somehow to revolve around their risk of involving a personal injury accident.

Not that slips, trips and falls are anything to laugh at, but I feel recently I have started spending my life gauging whether a circumstance is or should be governed by health and safety legislation, and whether the potential injury victim would be able to make a compensation claim or not.

However, I recently found a viral video set in a work environment which involved a large amount of people deliberately falling over onto a warehouse floor and thankfully, I merely laughed at the ludicrous spectacle as the workers from a well known bed company attempted to break the Mattress Dominoes World Record.

It was only when I sent the link to my personal injury claims office colleagues that one of them responded by saying it looked like a massive work accident in the making.

Of course in this instance it appears that all participants in the jape are willing volunteers and as the human dominoes – workers standing up against single mattresses - are toppled in a long line across the floor of the work place the viewer finds themselves merely contemplating how much fun it looks like they're having and wondering if they don't have the most fun loving, good natured boss on the face of the earth.

However, when I finally put my health and safety hat on I saw a risk of crush injuries, head injuries, broken bones and maybe even a claim or two for product liability in the event of a spring breaking loose inside one of the mattresses and stabbing the hapless toppler in the spleen. Oh, how sad I felt.

I started to hope, for the employer's sake, that they had got the staff to sign liability waiver documents or that they had upped their cover with their insurers to protect against the added work accident risk.

In total, 41 mattress dominoes toppled their way to a new Guinness World Record as, although the pastime is said to be popular amongst American college students, the officials confirmed that a record had not been formally set before the Gloucestershire workers made their attempt.

And as I watch it for the third time, I know my humour impulse has been severely curtailed because as the final human domino is packed off on a conveyor belt and into an awaiting delivery van I winced as he went under a low level walkway passing over the conveyor belt and almost cried out – "Did you see how close he was to getting a severe head injury there?"

I'm sorry, but I don't find personal injury funny, well not at third time of watching anyway.

Can I claim?